Trivia Contest

Who was the North Florida educator who founded a grade school for black girls, expanded it into a college and later became the first black ever to head a federal agency?

ANSWER: In 1904 Mary McLeod Bethune, with working capital of $1.50, started the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls on the site of a former city dump. In less than two decades it expanded to become Bethune-Cookman College, where she served as president.

Born in South Carolina, the daughter of former slaves won scholarships for advanced schooling in North Carolina and Chicago, then put her superior intelligence to work for the education of other blacks. In Washington she was consulted by every administration from Calvin Coolidge to Harry Truman, and in Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal she became the first black woman to head a federal government agency -- the Division of Negro Affairs (1936-1944).

Underneath her genteel, courteous manner was a toughness that the Ku Klux Klan could attest to. Tipped off that the KKK was planning to march on her school, she turned off all the lights until the men in sheets arrived, then suddenly turned them on and cued the school children to begin singing hymns at the top of their voices. Startled, the Klan quickly retreated.